Trabia Garden

I have a bad habit of getting tangled up in questions of whether something I'm working on is 'worth' writing or sharing. I don't hold anyone else to these weird standards, but suddenly, when I'm the writer, every fic apparently needs to justify itself in my head. Is this long enough for me to post to AO3; is it good enough? What's the point of this fic?

These are silly questions to ask when we're all just in fandom to have fun and share our love for things. I'm not going to lose my job as a ficwriter because I happened to post a silly little ficlet, and it's not taking up space that might otherwise be occupied by more 'worthwhile' fanfiction. The wordcount is right there on display; anyone who's not looking for shorter things can just pass the ficlet by, or filter by wordcount. People who are open to something short can check it out, if they so desire. Maybe they'll even enjoy it!

I've broken it occasionally, but I've been keeping to a general 'don't post anything under a thousand words' rule on AO3. The thing that finally led me to reassess: I found myself tempted to pick up a pinch hit for pokepodproject, which requires that fics be under 1,000 words.

In the end, I missed the opportunity to grab the pinch hit! But, while I was waiting to hear whether I'd been successful, I went, 'Well, I suppose I'd better create a space on AO3 where I'll be comfortable posting shorter things.'

Anyway, that's why I ended up creating my rixareth pseud on my secondary AO3 account, rionaleonhart, which I originally created for archiving my older fics. (My main AO3 account is Riona.)

I'm still not quite bold enough to post every ficlet I've ever written, but I gathered some I felt confident enough to post under the rixareth name. I decided I'd post them without backdating, as most were originally written in response to comment prompts and had never really seen the light of day outside this journal, but I'd stick to one ficlet per fandom per day to avoid flooding fandom tags. I posted the first batch of ficlets and waited nervously to see how they were received.

Within four hours, someone had translated one of the ficlets into Russian, which was certainly reassuring on the 'will anyone enjoy this?' front.

I've continued to post little batches of ficlets to the rixareth pseud over the last few days. Here are some things I've learnt from this experience, other than 'translators work terrifyingly fast':

- It's sort of nice to have these commentfics archived somewhere. I've written a lot of little ficlets over the years; it's a shame that they've just been languishing in the depths of my journal, where no one is ever going to see them. I had no recollection of writing some of the things I've managed to dig up!

- Things add up quickly! I've posted thirty-two ficlets to the rixareth pseud so far. They're all tiny individually, but collectively they're over 11,000 words.

- The Torchwood fandom is a lot more active than I was expecting! The show ended thirteen years ago; I sort of assumed it would have gone quiet. But no; apparently plenty of people are still into Torchwood. (Death Note is also surprisingly lively for a long-closed canon, but I was already aware of that on account of my headlong plunge back into Death Note last year.)

- I have some fics that have just languished unfinished for years. This ficlet-posting exercise has led me to reassess them and realise that, in some cases, the problem isn't that I can't think of where to go with the fic; the problem is that the fic is already finished, and I just failed to recognise or accept that because it was less than a thousand words long. I should really comb through my 'abandoned fanfiction' folder and see what can be salvaged.

- You can just post tiny things to AO3 and it's fine! Nobody complains! The fact that a fic can be read in the space of a minute or two doesn't necessarily mean people won't enjoy it. Sometimes that's exactly what you need.

Well, my 'Torchwood: Miracle Day will contain an average of one explosion per episode' prediction was clearly a bit on the conservative side. How many explosions were there in the first episode, again? Three?

I'm quite gripped by the concept of Miracle Day, though! I'm interested in seeing where it goes. At the moment it seems to be at 'good Torchwood' level, but I'm always wary with Torchwood, because the quality level could veer wildly downwards at any moment.

Incidentally, when did Gwen Cooper become my favourite character?


Yesterday I went to see Astrology, Ahir Shah's first solo stand-up show! I enjoyed it very much and think that anyone going to the Edinburgh Fringe this August should check him out, although I should mention that my opinion may well be biased on account of three factors:

- he is a friend of my brother's,
- I have consequently met him a couple of times and he seems a thoroughly nice chap, and
- he mentioned a Bulbasaur halfway through his act.

Still, I'm confident that it's well worth watching even if those personal biases are set aside. I can assure you that his jokes are much better than those in the following exchange:


(Riona and Rei are in the back of yuffie_starfish's car. We pass a shop called 'Door World'.)
Riona: Ah, Door World. My very favourite theme park.
Yuffie: (to another inhabitant of the car) We are not lost.
Riona: It's easy to get lost in Door World.
Rei: Yeah. I hear some people just can't handle it.
(pause)
Riona: ...are you finished?
Rei: There's no call for s-knob-bery.
Riona: We need to stop distracting the driver; our safety hinges on it.
Rei: You're right; we're skirting dangerous territory here.
Riona: ...I'm not sure whether to give that one to you. (note: this is the one post-'handle' line that does not contain a pun; don't bother looking for one.)
Rei: Look, whatever you think, I was framed.
Riona: Stop grinning like an... alli... gate... or.
Rei: That one could have used some polish.
Riona: Screw you.
Rei: It was just a bit wooden.
Riona: I think it's plane that you're going to win this one. I'm glad we're not in front of a panel of judges.

I'll stop sharing terrible conversations when reipan stops being a terrible person.

Yesterday, I watched the first two-and-a-half episodes of Misfits with reipan and hippyjolteon.

My main impression so far (apart from 'the opening credits are gorgeous'): it's a bit like Torchwood, in that it's about a group of generally-unadmirable characters dealing with weird things, but the execution is about eighty million times better. Also, seeing the first episode of Misfits shortly after watching the first episode of Dead Set is an incredibly weird experience, because the scene in which Misfits Kelly barges in to warn them about Tony is more or less exactly the scene in which Dead Set Kelly first breaks into the Big Brother house to get away from the zombies. TONY'S EYES EVEN LOOK THE SAME AS THE EYES OF THE DEAD SET ZOMBIES.

Conclusion: the Misfits need to find themselves trapped in a zombie apocalypse.

Kelly is probably my favourite character at the moment. Nathan is a brilliant creation but a difficult man to love.


Prior to our Misfits-watching, I discovered a typewritten note, addressed to my dad at a place he lived before I was born. It began thus:

Dear Mr [Riona's Dad]
I hope you will forgive me for approaching you in this manner but it has been brought to my attention by a reliable source that you have a serious interest in Freemasonry and that you are of sound and trustworthy character.
I therefore wish to invite you to our next meeting in which potential members of the Brotherhood will be invited to ask questions and we will have the opportunity to meet each other and perhaps consider taking things a step further.

Highly amused, I asked my parents about it. It turned out that my mum actually sent it to him when he was reading a book about Freemasonry. She insists that he was fooled and went around telling people about it; he insists he wasn't. Regardless of whether he was tricked or not, I sort of love that.

Oh, my goodness, who renewed my Paid time? Thank you so much! I was just resigning myself to being without comment-editing and polls and userpics and protection from advertising, and all of a sudden: unexpected anonymous loveliness! Amazing!

I'd love to do something for you, anonymous benefactor, but of course I don't know who you are and so I don't know what would interest you. I HOPE YOU LIKE SNIPPETS OF UNFINISHED FANFICTION, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU'RE APPARENTLY GETTING. (Obviously these are for all of you, not just my anonymous benefactor.)


( Doctor Who/Final Fantasy XII: Jack Harkness introduces Balthier and Fran to the Doctor. )


( Kingdom Hearts II: Hayner and Seifer meet Leon in Hollow Bastion. )


( The Mentalist: Jane and Cho have fairly unsuccessful phonesex. )


( Derren Brown/Doctor Who/Supernatural: Derren and the Doctor, post-restless-spirit encounter. )


( Derren Brown/Supernatural: Castiel and Dean discuss Derren-the-angel. )


( Peep Show/Silent Hill: Mark goes to Silent Hill and Jeremy follows him. )


( Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell: awkward steps towards a relationship. )


( Merlin: Merlin and Gwen swap bodies. )


Some of these may eventually be finished! Some of them, alas, probably won't be. In any case, I hope you've enjoyed the snippets.

All right: the fic in which Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell find themselves thrown together in the midst of a zombie invasion definitely needs to exist. I say this largely because petrol has introduced me to the mental image of Brooker fighting zombies with a baseball bat, bloodied and sweat-soaked and exhausted, and, for reasons I'd prefer not to examine too closely, it is incredibly hot.


Anyway, more character-number questions! The first instalment is here. Represented are Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who (and Torchwood), Peep Show, Supernatural, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Merlin, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Derren Brown, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker.


( Possibly rambled for slightly too long on a couple of these. )


Yet more to come!

Ahahaha, oh, dear, I fear my parents may be becoming concerned by my uneventful love life. An exchange I recently had with my father via the incomprehensible medium of Google Wave:


Riona's Father: Loved the VD Post!

MY DEAREST HARRIET
YOU COULD BE PALLY YET.
IF SOMEONE GRABS YOU WITH THEIR LARIAT
DON'T DILLY-DALLY, PET

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY


Riona: I automatically interpreted 'VD' as 'venereal disease'. I just thought you should know.

OH DAD
DON'T BE SAD
THAT I HAVEN'T YET MET A SUITABLE LAD
UNIVERSITY, AFTER ALL, 'S DRIVING ME MAD
AND I THINK THAT'S ENOUGH UNTIL MAY

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY


Riona's Father: Of course you did.

A scholarly lady named Harriet
Was senseless to Time's Wing-ed Chariot.
Her ramblings eternal
Upon her Livejournal
Did not dispose her to marry yet.


I might have been mildly ticked off had the pressure not been presented in such a hilarious format.


In the comments to my entry on The Bubble, anewcitylife proposed retitling the show The Abuse David Mitchell Half Hour.

I would love to watch The Abuse David Mitchell Half Hour. David Mitchell is needled and mocked, and he makes quietly self-deprecating comments until eventually he snaps and flies into one of his amazing minute-long rants. (Obviously I am not proposing this rather cruel concept out of any dislike for David Mitchell. I adore David Mitchell. I just happen to feel that he is at his most hilarious and adorable when he is nettled. Sorry, Mitchell.)

What are some other television programmes that do not exist but clearly should? There's the documentary about David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker's crime-fighting adventures, obviously; they have no physical fighting ability whatsoever, but their sarcasm is devastating. There's Master Who, the weirdly-reminiscent-of-Tom-and-Jerry Doctor Who spinoff in which the Master attempts to take over the world in every episode but is thwarted by Donna Noble. There's Celebrity Big Brother: Top Gear Edition, in which Clarkson, Hammond and May are locked in a house together and the public make bets on how long it will be before they somehow blow it up. By what do you feel our televisions would be infinitely improved?

Stolen from wanttobeatree:

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or fewer for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.


1. Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
2. Derren Brown
3. Ruby (Supernatural)
4. Merlin (er, Merlin)
5. Balthier Bunansa (Final Fantasy XII)
6. Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
7. Pyramid Head (Silent Hill 2)
8. Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)
9. Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood)
10. Castiel (Supernatural)


( Writing a fic in fifteen words is, it turns out, rather tricky. )

I love this meme. It boils my journal down to its absolute essence.


- Write a list of characters and number them.
- Input the number of characters into this random number generator as the maximum and generate two numbers.
- Ramble about how the corresponding pairing/partnership/general interaction would (or, indeed, wouldn't) work. Perhaps write a snippet/one-sentence fic for it if you're feeling brave.
- Repeat to your heart's content.


( Fandoms represented: Derren Brown, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XII, Supernatural, Harry Potter, Torchwood, House, Silent Hill, Avatar, Scrubs, Kingdom Hearts, Hetalia, The Mentalist, Jak and Daxter. )


I was just looking over some of the writing I did for NaNoWriMo in 2004, and, whilst much of it makes me cringe (the wordcount-padding is embarrassingly obvious), this part rather amused me:


Hero was making a valiant effort to remain calm, but it was terribly difficult. Love Interest, kidnapped? He would obviously have to do something about it.

Friend had teased Hero sometimes that he was falling in love with Love Interest, but he generally just ignored it. She was his friend. Nothing more. The fact that her name happened to be ‘Love Interest’ was clearly an unfortunate coincidence.


MY GOODNESS, SHE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED? I SHALL OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT.

Also, I am mildly bewildered by the fact that one of the characters, Tai, is totally Sokka. I wrote this four years before watching Avatar and several months before Avatar even began, but he is still totally Sokka. How bizarre.

You know, Otacon would be sort of delightful as the Doctor's companion. He would be so fascinated by everything. (He would also be terrified, but he would never be able to leave the Doctor, on account of having fallen madly in love with the TARDIS.)

Other possible companions for the Doctor (I've posted on this topic before, of course, but the possibilities are never quite exhausted): Sora, Riku and Kairi. The trio have been planning for years to build a raft and sail away from Destiny Island together. One night, their island is overrun by Heartless and swallowed up by the darkness. Sora, Riku and Kairi are standing back-to-back-to-back on Riku's favourite part of the island, slashing ineffectually at the little shadowy creatures with their wooden swords, and just when all hope seems lost a blue box materialises before them.

Riku doesn't trust the Doctor at all; he's convinced that he is the one responsible for the destruction of their home. Sora trusts him completely, though, and Kairi, despite some initial wariness, seems to like him, so Riku rolls his eyes and steps into the TARDIS. Just to make sure his friends don't get themselves killed.

...hey, wait. This is completely unrelated to the characters-as-the-Doctor's-companion subject, but does Riku have a Nobody? (Kixur? Kirux?) Surely it would make sense. He did have the Heartless symbol on his chest in the first game, so I sort of assumed there was at least a period of being a Heartless. (I was going to say 'a period of Heartlessness', but of course the Heartless aren't heartless. It's the Nobodies that don't have hearts. In fact, Nobodies are just, er, bodies. DEAR KINGDOM HEARTS: YOUR NAMING SYSTEM MAKES PRECISELY NO SENSE.)


OTHER CHARACTERS WHO SHOULD BE THE DOCTOR'S COMPANION: DONNA NOBLE.

YES, SHE IS A CANONICAL COMPANION, BUT SHE SHOULD BE HIS COMPANION ALL THE TIME.

I love you, Donna.


Unrelatedly: yesterday, when I posted my ill-advised Captain John Hart: Team Rocket Agent manip, dracothelizard asked who his team partner would be.

The obvious answer was 'Suzie Costello'.

They've never met in canon, of course, but I have a feeling that they could make a rather marvellous team. Jack's Houndoom, Gwen's Eevee/Flareon, Ianto's Aerodactyl and Owen's Carvanha had better watch out. (Tosh's Porygon lives in the computer system, so it's probably safe. UNTIL HART AND COSTELLO INFECT THE TORCHWOOD COMPUTER SYSTEM WITH A VIRUS AND IT EVOLVES INTO PORYGON-Z, OH NO.)


On an even less related note: this morning, I received a large envelope in the post.

It contained a High School Musical paper plate and nothing else.

Most perplexing. (wanttobeatree... wanttobeatree? Was that you?)

Troy looks like a Hobbit on it and I don't know why.

This paragraph has nothing to do with the rest of this entry, but I would like to see an Avatar-esque elemental bending battle portrayed in live action using the terrible sixties special effects of Star Trek: The Original Series. It would be spectacular.


I was just on TV Tropes, and found, to my distress, that both Cameron and Thirteen of House were listed as The Wesley (LINK GOES TO TV TROPES, DO NOT CLICK IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME), a character who is loved by the author but despised by the fanbase.

Therefore, I thought I would make a nice poll in which we all express love for unpopular characters.

(Whilst Alex Drake was unpopular at the beginning of Ashes to Ashes (I have to confess that I disliked her at first and have since changed my stance), I don't know what the general opinion of her is now. I included her in the poll anyway, because love is good. Also, this is just based on what I've seen on the Internet, so I may have mistakenly included a character with whom the fandom in general has no problems at all. Again, that's no reason not to express your liking for them!)

Who chose what is visible only to me, so you don't have to worry about being judged for not ticking a box. (I'll admit that I'm not a fan of River Song, but I included her anyway because it's not only the characters I like who deserve affection.) Also, remember that a character receiving fewer votes than another is not necessarily an indication that that character is more disliked, as people answering will be familiar with different fandoms.


[Poll #1434859]

I almost included a 'now ramble about your favourite of these characters!' textbox, but then I remembered that, as results aren't viewable, only I would be able to see the ramblings, and that's no fun. Feel free to ramble in the comments, though! (You should also feel free to ramble about your love for unpopular characters I have failed to include in this poll.)